Brent Naden scored an NRL try for the ages and James Maloney had the final say as Penrith snatched a dramatic 19-18 golden point win over the Warriors in Auckland.
The Panthers unleashed one of the gutsiest performances seen on Mt Smart Stadium, overcoming two contentious sin bin rulings and a 10-point deficit to notch their fifth straight win.
Rookie centre Naden was the hero with two tries in the final half-hour, including a memorable 90-metre solo try with three minutes remaining to put his team two points in front.
Maloney was deemed offside from the subsequent Warriors short kick-off and Patrick Herbert held his nerve, levelling the scores with a 35m penalty in the final minute of regular time.
A week after his influential State of Origin performance for NSW and without injured halves partner Nathan Cleary, Maloney capped an exceptional game with the winning field goal, after he and opposite Blake Green had both missed earlier attempts.
Maloney also laid on two of his team’s three tries, setting up a leaping Naden with a pinpoint bomb to start the fightback from 16-6 down.
The Warriors appeared destined to end their miserable run of home form when David Fusitu’a crossed after a fuming Penrith had been reduced to 11 players.
Maloney, who had a running battle with referee Gerard Sutton, was firstly enraged by Liam Martin’s 10-minute punishment for repeated Panthers offending soon before halftime.
He believed he hadn’t been given sufficient warning that a sin bin was looming.
The veteran’s blood pressure doubled soon after the break when halves partner Jarome Luai was given his marching orders, reducing the visitors to 11 for three minutes.
Sutton deemed Luai had committed a professional foul for tripping Warriors skipper Roger Tuivasa-Sheck – a questionable ruling on two counts. The contact appeared accidental and Tuivasa-Sheck had already knocked on in the lead-up.
Maloney’s men somehow regrouped in the most spectacular win of their mid-season revival, highlighted by 23-year-old Naden’s defence shredding run in just his fourth NRL game.
Albo
Roar Rookie
Gutsy win by the Panthers under the circumstances of this match. They were very badly treated by the officials with both sin bin decisions ( leaving them with 11 players at one point) and wrongly ruling on the Fusitua try that was soon found to be a no try after it was awarded (if only the bunker had looked at all camera's ) and yet another lopsided penalty count against them (11-5) ? Jimmy Maloney had his best game for the Panthers, dragging them back into the match and eventually winning it in extra time with the field goal. James Fisher-Harris was once again outstanding with 17 hit ups & 58 tackles and Liam Martin gets better every match with 10 hit ups & 54 tackles ( despite the dodgy sin binning). Mansour, To'o, Edwards, & Kikau ran for lots of metres and Brent Naden finally showed he is not just "rocks" , but produced a couple of huge "diamonds" to get the Panthers in front late. For me Jerome Luai & Wade Egan disappointed yet again by not running the ball in that second half with tiring Warriors leaving gaps galore ? Whilst still not playing to their best ability , that is 5 wins in a row for the Panthers with the bye next week and they are showing that they can scrap well when the game is at its toughest. For the Warriors it was just another one that got away from them even given most of the favours from the officials. RTS had 30 hit ups for 277 metres but was generally well contained by the Panthers defence. Whilst Jazz Tevaga was enormous for them with 21 hit ups and 184 metres and 50 tackles.